Review: Book Love – Debbie Tung
Book Loveby Debbie Tung
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: January 1, 2019
Genres: Graphic Novel
Pages: 144
Source: NetGalley
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
My rating:
Bookworms rejoice! These charming comics capture exactly what it feels like to be head-over-heels for hardcovers.
Book Love is a gift book of comics tailor-made for tea-sipping, spine-sniffing, book-hoarding bibliophiles. Debbie Tung’s comics are humorous and instantly recognizable—making readers laugh while precisely conveying the thoughts and habits of book nerds. Book Love is the ideal gift to let a book lover know they’re understood and appreciated.
Are you a bookworm? Can you not resist a bookstore? Do you try to squeeze reading time into random bits of your day? Do you agonize over which books to take with you? Would you rather stay home and read than do… well, pretty much anything else? Oh boy, do I have the graphic novel for you.
As an avid reader, this book is extremely relatable. I definitely had a few “IT ME!” moments while reading this (I’ll leave it to you to figure out if the “I stayed up all night reading” panel above was one of them). My only quibble was that most of the love focuses on physical books, so if you’re primarily an ebook reader like me, there’ll be some comics that don’t work quite as well. Reading the panel about trying to decide how many and which books to pack for a short outing did bring me back to ye olden times before ereaders, though.
Most of the book is single-page comics, usually about a particular bookworm concern, from finding out the next book in a series isn’t coming out for a year to realizing you’re at the limit for library checkouts. These are quick, humorous, and very enjoyable. There’s also some lists – different types of libraries, ways to store books, and ways to get out a reading slump, among others. I didn’t care for these as much, except for the wonderfully illustrated list of the author’s recommended books. My favorite part, however, is the beautiful full-page illustrations.
I absolutely love the style. It’s all done in black and white, with a sort of pen on watercolor feel. The main character, a pony-tailed woman, is incredibly expressive, whether she’s crying over finishing a book or excited at her new haul of books. I loved some of the pages so much that I actually stopped reading to go check out the author’s website to see if she sells prints (alas, it seems she doesn’t). I wish some of these were done in color as I think they’d be stunning!
Overall, this is an enjoyable read for any book lover. I’m actually a bit sad this is coming out after the holidays as this would be a great gift for several friends, but there’s always next year!
